- il y a 13 heures
Artistic Empowerment or Existential Threat the Impact of AI on the Creative Economy
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00:00:00Good morning everyone. Thank you so much for making time this morning outside what is a very busy conference to
00:00:08join us and listen to an incredibly illustrious panel that I have in front of me on the topic of
00:00:15artistic empowerment or existential threat, the impact of AI on the creator economy.
00:00:21I have the luxury of introducing my fellow, my panelists here, Matt Ruif, who is the founder of PhotoRoom, the
00:00:29world's largest AI photo editor, and Nick Bakshi, an internationally awarded creative director at BETC. Matt, please, would you like
00:00:38to introduce yourself?
00:00:40Yeah, so I'm Matt, I'm a co-founder and CEO of PhotoRoom. I've been working on photography, photo editing on
00:00:49mobile apps for the past 15 years, and I did the AI part 10 years ago, and now working on
00:00:56PhotoRoom, number one photo editor in the world, AI photo editor, and it's been five years, an amazing journey.
00:01:03Nick? Yeah, I'm Nick Bakshi. I'm a creative director at BTC. BTC is an ad agency here in Paris. It
00:01:10was ranked the number one most creative agency in the world last year, which was a huge honor.
00:01:14I run the Citroen account there, and previously I worked at Milan as the creative director on Heineken globally, mainly
00:01:21running the Champions League work, and I've had my work recognized at all of the major award shows, Cannes, D
00:01:26&AD, OneShow, Clios, all of that, yeah.
00:01:28Incredible. Thank you both so much. Just to kick off, I think, just to help give the audience some perspective,
00:01:35Matt, could you help the audience understand, what's the main profile of a PhotoRoom customer, and what are some of
00:01:40the key use cases that people are using PhotoRoom for?
00:01:44Right. So, I mean, we're big apps, so hundreds of millions of downloads, so a lot of people for many
00:01:51use cases use us. I just got an email last week from Carol, 91 years old, using PhotoRoom for our
00:01:58newsletter.
00:01:58So, from 4 to 91 years old, then I think what's important is to understand what we focus on, and
00:02:05basically we got a lot of traction and a lot of growth because we focus on resellers, e-commerce, small
00:02:13businesses, so everyone that needs a photo for their job, but doesn't have the skill, the 10,000 hours, like
00:02:20Nikkas, or more, to get good photos.
00:02:23So, that's our focus. Make professional photo accessible to all professionals.
00:02:28Awesome. Thanks so much. And Nik, could you also help give the audience some perspective and understanding of your role
00:02:34at BTC and, you know, where your team gets involved in designing an ad?
00:02:38Sure. Yeah. The ad life cycle is pretty basic. The client will come to the agency with a business problem.
00:02:45We'll then translate that through strategy and account into a creative brief, which is how you speak to creatives. And
00:02:52then my team steps in to make the creative leap to turn that into messaging. That can be anything. It
00:02:57could be a PR stunt, it could be a TV commercial, a radio, a print ad. Yeah, that's kind of
00:03:04my role.
00:03:04Amazing. And I guess to get things a little spicy, there's probably one question that a lot of the audience
00:03:11members are keen to understand. How has AI impacted the advertising process?
00:03:16So, are tools like Midjourney, DALI, ChatGPT, are they in daily use? And are there any considerations that you have
00:03:24to use or you and your team or your organization have to use before using some of the content that
00:03:29comes out of these products before you can implement them in the content you create?
00:03:34Sure. Yeah. I mean, the AI revolution has completely changed the industry and it's happened very fast. It was incredible
00:03:42to watch. I think that two years ago, everything was done in Photoshop. This is one example. Everything was done
00:03:48in Photoshop. Within six months, I no longer saw anything really that hadn't been touched by AI in some way.
00:03:56Everything was done in Midjourney and then maybe finished in Photoshop. But it's touching the industry in a lot of
00:04:02different ways.
00:04:03I think what's important right now is at this point, it's touching the inputs more than it's touching the outputs.
00:04:09And what I mean when I say that is not a lot of finished products are being made with AI
00:04:14at this point. And I say at this point because things are changing very quickly. Right now, it's being used
00:04:19a lot for internal messaging. So I need to communicate to a client or to another teammate an idea. And
00:04:27the fastest, easiest way to do that now is using Midjourney, whereas previously would have been Photoshop.
00:04:34Or ChatGPT, right? Like these are not outputs. We're not using them for outputs. We're using them as creative tools
00:04:38in the process of making the ads.
00:04:42And to answer the second part of your question about considerations, the considerations play a large role in why we're
00:04:48not using it for the output. At this point, there's a legal gray space about what you can and can't
00:04:54use that's produced by AI.
00:04:57Obviously, these systems are not making anything on their own. They're synthesizing using other data points, photographs in this case.
00:05:09And you have to pay the rights to the people who have taken those photos or it's still unclear how
00:05:14that's going to work.
00:05:15So we're not using anything as outputs at this point, though some people are doing it in certain spaces. Yeah,
00:05:23other considerations. That's kind of it. That's a good long answer for you.
00:05:27And Matt, I mean, I understand that PhotoRoom has launched its own foundational model. And, you know, I think we'd
00:05:33be curious to understand, and I know there's a blog post about it, but how it's similar or different to
00:05:38some of these other ones that we've talked about on the market, and how whether or not there are considerations
00:05:43around making it usable for a large enterprise, perhaps similar to Nick or similar to some of Nick's clients. We'd
00:05:49love to get your perspective on that.
00:05:51Yeah, there are a lot of points that Nick mentioned that are entering consideration for us to, like, really train
00:05:59our own model. So the starting point was, we serve, like, small businesses, bigger businesses, but time is money. So
00:06:08we want to build the fastest model on Earth. Like, mid-journey would take, like, 30 seconds to generate. We
00:06:15take less than one second. And for us, like, for our use case, it's very important.
00:06:19And then we wanted to not be dependent on the data and the problem that some of the open source
00:06:25model might have that creates a problem for you to be able to use them. So we wanted to have
00:06:31total control on the data we use to train the model. So we use public data and license data that
00:06:36we buy from, like, big stock photography places or individually from the customer, for the photographers.
00:06:42So this part of the data was very important for us to get the best quality. Also, we don't, like,
00:06:50we make our model, like, our foundation model not see any violence or porn.
00:06:53So, I mean, a lot of people are saying, like, okay, if you put, like, a porn word, then it
00:06:59won't, like, you block the generation. But what we do is, well, what we say is it's easier to, like,
00:07:05have a guardrail when you never see that.
00:07:07I have three kids. And I'm not, like, telling them, you can't say these words. I'm, like, I'm not showing
00:07:12these things. And the AI is the same. Like, if you don't show violence, if you don't show, like, porn
00:07:16to them, to the AI, then it's, like, it's safer results.
00:07:20So that's the second reason. Owning the data is also a way for us to feedback. Like, if you don't
00:07:26own the total stack, like, from the training to the product to the inference, then it's very difficult to you
00:07:33to, like, iterate and get better.
00:07:36And the luck of PhotoRoom is we have the biggest AI audience in the world. Like, we have 30 million
00:07:42active users and they give us feedback on which data is good, which image is good, which is not, which
00:07:47helps us, like, get better over time.
00:07:49And you can't do that if you don't own the data and the model initially. So this is a similar
00:07:55architecture, but it's our own architecture to be faster.
00:07:58But the most important part is the data and be able to say to our smaller customers, but also, like,
00:08:02big Fortune 500 companies that use PhotoRoom API, like, we know how it has been trained.
00:08:08It's safe. It's the best market for that. And so that's very important in the discussions we have today.
00:08:14Got it. And I mean, something very powerful that you mentioned at the start, your user base is somebody as
00:08:20young as 4 to 91, right? It's very, very large and everybody in between.
00:08:24How do you think about the balance between building such powerful tools and the functionality that the product you have
00:08:32versus the technical expertise where, you know, if I think about, you know, my grandparents or if I think about
00:08:39my, you know, my nieces and nephews?
00:08:40And, like, how do you balance when it comes to kind of shipping product and designing product for that use
00:08:47case, the balance between power and ease?
00:08:51Yeah. So, I mean, the exception story for PhotoRoom is me. I was at GoPro before in front of my
00:08:57computer and spending the afternoon because my designer was off and I couldn't get anything done with Photoshop.
00:09:03Like, literally, I had been working 10 years with Photoshop and I couldn't get it done because I don't use
00:09:08it every day.
00:09:10And I had the AI team on the side and, like, they were exactly doing the algorithm where, like, doing
00:09:16the non-creative task that should be easy.
00:09:18And so, okay, we need to create something for a product manager that wants to create visuals.
00:09:23And it turns out, like, it's very, it turns out, like, everyone needs that.
00:09:27Like, hundreds of millions of people need a good way to create beautiful assets that are, like, yeah, that are
00:09:34efficient for their work.
00:09:36And how do we think about that? I do think, like, Gen.ai is offering an opportunity to get 10x
00:09:43more people creating beautiful visuals
00:09:45because visual communication is one of the most important. It's a good way to tell, as you say, it's a
00:09:49good way to tell what you think.
00:09:51Like, words are good for some stuff. Images are actually used, like, younger and also very powerful in some use
00:09:56cases.
00:09:57So, we want to make it accessible. In PhotoRoom, like, we get all your users to export something in three
00:10:03tabs.
00:10:04That's one of the rules. Like, you should be successful in three tabs.
00:10:07So, simple things should be easy. Advanced things should be possible.
00:10:12That's the way with these things. So, everyone can join PhotoRoom, try it.
00:10:16That's how you get hundreds of millions of people there. Complex things, we give control.
00:10:20Like, the API for big companies, it's even more powerful. You get more control.
00:10:24So, it exists. You can do everything you want. But for what we surface for, first, is, like, really simple
00:10:30controls.
00:10:31It's like, we call it progressive disclosure. Like, you don't need to see the complexity. Main streets.
00:10:37It's easy. You're successful. You feel successful. And it's important in creativity.
00:10:41Then you get the little shortcuts that you can get or more advanced features if you're a professional.
00:10:48That's the way I see things.
00:10:49That's great. Simple things should be easy and advanced things should be possible is something that I probably will steal.
00:10:55That's a great line. Nick, could you walk us through, you know, you've come up with some of these award
00:11:00-winning ads.
00:11:01And could you walk us through, you know, the creative process that you use?
00:11:05And I recognize it's probably quite a complex question. But, you know, tell us about maybe some of the tools
00:11:11that you use in the process.
00:11:12You mentioned Photoshop. And do you encourage your team to be innovative with some of the tools that they use
00:11:18for, you know,
00:11:19either internal or external communications? There are products and services that are coming out on the market at an incredibly
00:11:24rapid pace.
00:11:26How do you, how do you, how do you kind of help manage your team the balance between being an
00:11:30innovative and, yeah.
00:11:32It's a complex question, but I'll try to break it down into parts.
00:11:35I think that the first part of the question is about making award-winning work.
00:11:38And there is no formula and advertising is very multifaceted.
00:11:42There are a lot of different mediums, styles, techniques.
00:11:46It could be developing a product or it could be making a TV commercial and everything in between.
00:11:51So there is no real formula for making award-winning work.
00:11:55Like, I would say that the one commonality in all of the really strong, powerful work is that it tells
00:12:01the truth.
00:12:02I think very commonly of advertising people think, oh, you guys just like, you tell lies, like your job is
00:12:08to make things up.
00:12:09And I couldn't feel more differently. I think that really powerful advertising does the opposite.
00:12:14It tells the right truth in the most exaggerated way or the most extravagant or compelling way.
00:12:20So I think the commonality of award-winning work is that.
00:12:23Then how do you get to award-winning work?
00:12:25Well, you want to use every tool at your disposal and the tools are changing really, really fast.
00:12:30Advertising has evolved with technology in tandem the entirety of its existence.
00:12:38It used to be that you would come up with a concept and you would have an art director and
00:12:41a copywriter and somebody would literally write words and somebody would literally draw pictures.
00:12:46And that has evolved to Photoshop and Premiere Pro and Adobe Suites.
00:12:49And now we're stepping into AI.
00:12:50And I think that, of course, these tools are here to help us express ourselves and they are incredibly powerful.
00:12:57So at every step of the way, it's our responsibility to stay abreast with what's happening and to retool ourselves
00:13:03as creatives and make sure that every tool that we can use, that we have to use, we can use
00:13:10to the best of our abilities.
00:13:12And, you know, Matt, I'm sure as the founder and CEO of a business, one of your great joys is
00:13:18probably hearing how some of your 100 million users are implementing PhotoRoom in their day-to-day.
00:13:25I think it would be probably pretty insightful for the audience to hear maybe highlighting one example of how somebody
00:13:32has really transformed either a business project or a personal project using PhotoRoom.
00:13:38So we have from very small businesses to larger.
00:13:41I think one very recent story we got from one of our users of the API.
00:13:49So we have the mobile app, web app, and then API if you want to, like, plug the PhotoRoom tech
00:13:54in your workflow.
00:13:56It's from Goodbye Gear.
00:13:57So it's a little, I mean, it's a tech company in Colorado, marketplace, and they have an incredible mission which
00:14:04is, like, giving a second life to the toys and the gear that the kids were using when they were
00:14:10little.
00:14:11And, I mean, Toy Story, basically.
00:14:15And this is amazing, like, it's a second-hand economy, it's good for their environment, it's good for kids.
00:14:20So I love this story.
00:14:22And they implemented PhotoRoom tech to, like, get a better visual because, I mean, every kid's room is different.
00:14:30So it would be overcrowded, a lot of noise of the photos if you would put them all on the
00:14:34same page.
00:14:35And they used the API to, like, really clean the product and the photo and put, like, the same background
00:14:41for all the photos of the toys and the gear on the homepage.
00:14:45And so, first, it helped them, like, saving time.
00:14:48Like, I think they saved, like, 80 hours a week because of the automation of the process.
00:14:53And, I mean, having an easier way to, like, cut the noise, easy way to browse, like, with your eyes,
00:15:01it really, it also improved their metrics, which was incredible.
00:15:03Not only, like, we're giving a second life to toys and gear, but also they, like, they sell, the average
00:15:09basket is, like, 70% bigger because of cleaning the photos.
00:15:14And they have, like, 20, 25% more traffic because of that, too.
00:15:18So, yeah, it's quite incredible to, like, have a positive impact on the economy, on the second-hand market, on
00:15:23the environment with PhotoTech.
00:15:24That's incredible.
00:15:25That's incredible to see the direct use case between your product and the impact that they have on their business
00:15:33and some of the metrics that they track.
00:15:34That's really fantastic.
00:15:35And, you know, Nick, I think one of the big things that, you know, I, as being an investor in
00:15:44tech companies and venture, one of the big things that we've seen in advertising is,
00:15:47and also when it comes to our portfolio companies spending on marketing, is their budget and constraints.
00:15:55And now, I'd be curious to get your perspective on how you marry budgets and constraints that these companies are
00:16:02facing,
00:16:02especially in an economy like the one that we currently have, with your clients' expectations and also your personal creative
00:16:11drive and your team's creative drive.
00:16:14And are there, you know, how do you marry those three in kind of creating some of the work that
00:16:19you do?
00:16:19And have you found that some of the tools that we've talked about, I want to stop kind of harping
00:16:24on AI because I think there are broader tools that are out there in the market.
00:16:28How do you marry that? And have you found that's kind of changed over time?
00:16:34Yeah, definitely. I think with this new set of tools that we are empowered with, you're able to make things
00:16:42much faster and at a higher quality, which sounds great.
00:16:48You know, when you hear that, you're like, oh my God, my life is going to be so much easier.
00:16:51I can make things faster.
00:16:52The reality is, with the change in technology comes a change in expectations from your clients.
00:16:58So really what you're asked to do is to make things, make more things in the same amount of time.
00:17:04Clients are not stupid. They're as on top of the technologies as we are.
00:17:08And that has always been a battle that advertisers have faced when Photoshop made it a lot faster than drawing.
00:17:16Eventually, we just had to make more Photoshop's.
00:17:18And that's happening now with with AI.
00:17:22I think the big difference is there is a human limit to coming up with concepts.
00:17:27And I think we're now we're able to express those concepts very quickly, but it still takes time to find
00:17:32the concepts.
00:17:32And until the machines steal that from us, I will I will defend that with my life.
00:17:37That time will always be important for us. Yeah.
00:17:39OK, that's great.
00:17:41And Matt, you know, I understand to date a lot of your traction has been from, you know, prosumers and
00:17:47individuals.
00:17:49How how are you thinking about, you know, your enterprise product proposition and, you know, really, really leaning into that
00:17:57from from a business perspective?
00:17:59Yeah. So we got like in when you get that many customers, like some come and some do work at
00:18:07some of the biggest company in the world, like eBay or Google or Amazon.
00:18:12And so that's that's they come to us and say, like, oh, I'd like to use like the tech but
00:18:17for another use case.
00:18:18So we started with mobile, but now we have the API.
00:18:21And we found like since for the past year, we found a lot of traction actually with enterprise customer.
00:18:27So we work with, yeah, we work with Warner Bros for the Barbie campaign last year.
00:18:34And what's was really interesting to me is also when Nick mentioned a lot, how you work on the input
00:18:40and the creative side.
00:18:41And for us, it was actually at the end of the funnel of the creative space where like the agencies
00:18:48were looking for ways to talk about the like the movie Barbie.
00:18:51So we did the Barbie campaign with them. And basically the idea is like, how do I get my fan
00:18:57base to advertise and talk about the movie, but still be able to control my brand.
00:19:02And so PhotoRoom gives the best tech to remove background, generate like shadows actually on that, like realistic shadows.
00:19:09We're the only one to do it like that well. And so for them, it's an opportunity to really control
00:19:15some of the brand with the assets, but also like leverage like the mass, their massive fan base.
00:19:21For Barbie, we had like Rihanna put herself into like a Barbie poster, thanks to PhotoRoom tech.
00:19:27And that's a new way of, I mean, as a brand, as a big company to leverage your fan base
00:19:32and user generated content on social media to advertise what you're doing.
00:19:37So it's interesting to me because we started for how do we make pro photos for like individuals and small
00:19:43businesses and the enterprise use case, one of the enterprise use case we have is, okay, I want my fan,
00:19:50like individuals that are not good, who are not good at photos to be able to show my brand, but
00:19:56I still get some control.
00:19:57And all tech enables that. And it's been amazing to see like this campaign work, we work with Netflix, we
00:20:03work with one of the, I can't name one of the biggest like pop star of the world that was
00:20:07here a few days ago.
00:20:09And, and yeah, and it's every image to use us for that. So really, it's a new way of doing
00:20:15campaign, like leveraging your audience and your fan base. And that's, that's, that's amazing to see.
00:20:20Okay, yeah, that's, that's, that's, that's quite powerful.
00:20:26Nick, we're going to go into the, the predicting the future component of this panel. So how do you see
00:20:34the role of traditional advertising evolving in, you know, the age of AI, digital transformation, and are there aspects of
00:20:44your process, where you feel like fundamentally, those are irreplaceable by technology?
00:20:52Fundamentally irreplaceable is a very strong term, I think that everything can be replaced, if a machine can learn, what
00:20:58can't it learn, you know, I think that's an existential crisis, or question for all of us.
00:21:03In terms of the immediate future, immediate, let's say, five or 10 years, I think that there are things that
00:21:08absolutely will be replaced, or supplemented by artificial intelligence.
00:21:15And the first place where I really see that in my day to day life is in things that are
00:21:19purely aesthetic, if you don't have a concept behind what you're making, you can lean on tools to make it
00:21:25for you, and they will do a very good job.
00:21:28So, specifically, in the world that I'm seeing of commercial production, I think about this a lot with luxury brands.
00:21:37Luxury brands are making really, really beautiful ads that don't say that much.
00:21:41If I tell a machine to show me Johnny Depp walking through a desert with three wolves screaming sauvage, an
00:21:49AI can do that for me.
00:21:51I think that when it gets into the higher, the concept, having a real idea that is rooted in a
00:21:57strategy that is based on major cultural movements, I think that those things are still too complicated to accomplish without
00:22:05some help.
00:22:05So, I think that as the industry moves forwards, it will consolidate itself around concepts, and it will move more
00:22:12upstream. I think that the average creative will become more like a creative director, and you will use the tools
00:22:18like an army of hands, essentially.
00:22:23Okay. And I think I'm going to come back to you for another question, then it's a question for both
00:22:29of you, actually. With a lot of these tools handling more mundane tasks, how do you see creativity evolving?
00:22:39I mean, you mentioned you have three kids, and, you know, I've got nieces and nephews in my life. I
00:22:45mean, what are some of the skills that you would probably advocate for, you know, the next generation of people
00:22:50that are trying to embark in a creative domain to try and pursue?
00:22:56I mean, Nick, perhaps you want to start with Matt? Yeah.
00:23:01Yeah, I mean, creativity for me, it's one of our culture of value at PhotoRoom. Like, we want to stay
00:23:07open because there are many new things you can do with AI, and the many ways you were doing that
00:23:11five years ago, you can do them in better ways, or some stuff are now possible that were not possible
00:23:17before.
00:23:17And I, yeah, I think it's like giving the permission to play to everyone, like trying new things all the
00:23:24time. It's an exercising. I mean, my kids, I don't use too much screen, but like we use ChatGPT voice
00:23:31to ask questions.
00:23:32She creates colorings with ChatGPT and so she can get exactly what she wants. So it's about, it's about new
00:23:39tools. So how do you play with them and get new ideas?
00:23:41And I mean, also creativity design is a reaction. So you have new tools and you can create new things
00:23:47with that. And how do you stand out with the new tools that you have access to?
00:23:51And that's kind of how I see things. So encouraging people to play with these new tools is the best
00:23:55way on the creative side, I think.
00:23:58Well, look, thank you both so much for coming here today. This has been very insightful. We have a full
00:24:04room in the audience and on the future of creativity. What a great way to end.
00:24:08Please, everybody put your hands together for Nick and Matt. Thank you.
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